Camel Fighting an important element in Turkish society

Jake Glass
                    America has its Nascar and Turkey has its Camel fighting           Turks are bizarre people and as with many Middle Easterners have bizarre sporting customs on of which is filling an arena to watch Camels bump and hump one another. People have a picnic as they attend the 33rd Selcuk-Ephesus Camel wrestling festival on January 18, 2015 in Selcuk district of Turkey and watch  these Camels break each others neck bashing and forwarding their necks in arenas all over Izmir, Turkey. This so called "sport" which is actually animal torture and brutality has been going on for 2400 years and originates among the Turkic tribes whose own history of brutality on fellow man and beasts is well recorded throughout history.   These men really seem to enjoy sitting in the sun getting baked and watching Camels swing their necks all day.   The audience is mistly men in this segregated society and often the only female in the arena is the lone female Camel in heat used to rev up the males into a fighting fury. Female camel urine is often sprayed into the crowd to go both man and beast into a frenzy for this important cultural institution in Turkey. Whether this sport travels and is spread throughout Asia Minor is yet to be determined.